Trump Says Keeping Covid-19 Deaths To 100,000 in the US Would Be a 'Very Good Job' (theguardian.com) 576
Donald Trump has extended America's national shutdown for a month, bowing to public health experts, and scientific reality, and warning that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come. From a report: Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, the US president claimed that, if his administration keeps the death toll to 100,000, it will have done "a very good job" -- a startling shift from his optimistic predictions of a few days ago when he said he hoped to restart the economy by Easter. Trump also undermined his plea for unity by uttering falsehoods, verbally abusing reporters and making incendiary allegations that implied health care workers were stealing masks, without providing evidence. The extended deadline marked a humiliating retreat for the president who, having squandered six precious weeks at the start of the pandemic, more recently complained that the cure is worse than the problem and floated Easter Sunday
Compared to 100K, yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Compared to 100K, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt I would have used "good job" as my salient point but it's Trump.
According to him, he *never* does anything but a good job, so no matter what the actual numbers turn out to be, he'll move the goalpost to make it sound like he had the right answer all the time and saved us all. Reviewing his statements, even just on the COVIS-19 outbreak, demonstrate that clearly. Also don't forget that he'll deny saying things that make him look bad, even things he said just last week and are literally recorded on video -- he did this in the daily Coronavirus briefing just the other day when reporters.
Re:Compared to 100K, yes (Score:5, Interesting)
The Trumpster playbook is to create as much chaos as he can (rumor, innuendo, insult, fake news, outright lies, etc.) watch where the cards land, take credit for what works and blame Obama or Hillary (or anybody else that is convenient) for what didn't work.
For those who think he is looking out for America, I say haha your fooled. Trumpster is looking out for only one person in the entire world and everybody else (with perhaps exception of blood relatives) is ripe to be tossed under the bus when the situation requires it.
Re:Compared to 100K, yes (Score:4, Interesting)
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100,000 deaths at this stage would be a phenomenally good job. The problem is that in the past 24 hours he's made statements and taken actions that will make that number damn near impossible. This will drag on, much longer than needed, because this government (amongst others) has dragged their feet.
A quote I saw from a school trustee here in Canada when they shut down schools:
In the end, it will be impossible to know if we acted too strongly or too quickly. It will, however, be tragically obvious if we did not act quickly or strongly enough.
Guess which side we seem to be tracking towards?
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Re: Compared to 100K, yes (Score:3)
No, they are being *evaluated* in trials. They are not in widespread use for covid-19, because their efficacy has not yet been determined. Those trials are accelerated because time is of the essence, but the results are only SLIGHTLY in the "promising" column, nowhere near the "accepted treatment" column.
Stop listening to Trump and pay more attention to Fauci. You'd know this if you had. (And precisely why Trump needs to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. The adults need to do the talking from now on.
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I hope you stop posting links to these low quality "studies."
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Christ on a fucking crutch, bud. This "newspaper" basically guessed who these people are. Here's the relevant paragraph from the article you link:
Although local and national media outlets withheld the couple's names, the Washington Free Beacon established their identities through descriptions in local news reports, where the pair were identified by their first names and ages: Gary, 68, and Wanda, 61. The Free Beacon is withholding their identities at Wanda's request.
That's some grade A bullshit right there.
Re:Compared to 100K, yes (Score:5, Informative)
Both Raoult studies have been characterized as highly suspect. [forbetterscience.com] That said, chloroquine is being studied by people who actually know what they are doing. It is a dangerous drug where the therapeutic, toxic and lethal doses are not very far apart. It has nasty side effects including deafness, blindness and arrhythmia. Nobody should ever self medicate with this.
Re:Compared to 100K, yes (Score:5, Informative)
Just some basic back of the envelop ball parking:
Best case (40% get it 0.5% fatality)
300 Million People x 40% = 120 million case
120 Million cases x 0.5% fatality rate = 600K people dead.
Optimistic Worst case (70% get it 1% fatality)
300 Million x 70% getting COVID = 210 million cases
210 Million cases x 1% fatality rate = 2.1 Million people dead.
and that's neglecting the fact that 2% will need ventilators and likely there are not enough to go around.
100K isn't just optimistic, it's a pipe dream and irresponsible number to be talking about as president of the US.
Quick sources:
up to 70% get it: ( https://duckduckgo.com/?q=70%2... [duckduckgo.com] ) ~30-70% are expert estimates.
US Population ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) ~308 Million
COVID Fatality rates: (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=covid+19+fatality+rate&t=canonical&ia=web ) China has as high as 4% Germany as low as 0.5%
Re:Compared to 100K, yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Compared to 100K, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Because every health official in the world could have told you that wasn't going to happen.
When all of this is over South Korea is going to have somewhere on the order of hundreds of deaths in total while the US will have hundreds of thousands. The US is only 6x larger in population than SK. The difference really is in the leadership and the infrastructure.
Once upon a time we used to hold presidents accountable for their public statements, because we all understood that a president standing at the podium never just speaks for themselves. They would relay messages from experts in their fields.
Now anything goes, no matter how personal or contrary to the public good those statements may be. Kinda like a cult. Only in this case the cult leader regularly contradicts the very same people qualified to save lives. But you call it "hope".
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Compared to 100K, yes (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Coronavirus successful treatment: Costs only $2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes but we won't use it because .... we're stupid ? Don't worry, scientists all around the world are watching this. If it is legit, it will be heavily implemented.
Chloroquine studies from France originate from a very dubious study which is filled with red flags. Like, not counting the patients who died in the middle of the treatment. Yeah, because they couldn't follow the whole protocol.
This one is probably the same. The title with "100% success" is a big one.
Follow this 100% success protocol : drink one glass of water every day. Do this for 2 months. If you're not dead ... it's 100% success. A protocol of X days will have 100% success on the first X days.
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Actually, Trump announced Sunday that 20 million doses are promised from various drug companies by April 15th. That's enough to treat about 4 million patients.
You do realize that Trump says a lot of things that are not true? So why would this one be any different?
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If so, then the puppeteer has fatally overestimated the intelligence of the American public. Trump's approval numbers are at an all-time high. Still less than 50%, but it's obvious that his base of deplorables will not abandon him, even if it kills them (and it like
Weird place to set goalposts (Score:4, Insightful)
With a 2% mortality in the US, assuming hospitals continue with their current load (hint: they won't, NY is in really big trouble), that implies he's anticipating 5M infections, up from 150K.
This sounds more like he wants to do something reckless, and set our expectations, rather than a sober account of a best case reality. He can fuck right off.
Re:Weird place to set goalposts (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather operate from data rather than guesswork and feels. http://coronawiki.org/country/... [coronawiki.org] is what I reference. I have absolutely no confidence in Donald Trump or his politicians to represent reality, and he has made it quite clear he's paranoid about his enemies trying to ruin his election by killing the economy. His head is in the wrong place as usual, and he keeps exactly the wrong company.
If one of his non-appointee experts in the CDC wants to correlate your hypothesis, I will consider it.
Re:Weird place to set goalposts (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. I've had dogs that were smarter than the Orange Julius. On the very rare occasion when he says something that actually fact checks out, he hasn't checked facts, it's just that his random fantasy-of-the-hour happened to line up with reality. An insane clock is right once in a while, but only a fool uses that clock to keep time.
Re: Weird place to set goalposts (Score:5, Insightful)
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Gotta flatten the curve. If hospitals get overwhelmed, the death rate could be much higher than 2%.
Exactly. If modern health care systems continue to function as intended, 1-2% is likely realistic. When the systems become overwhelmed, 4%, 6% even 10% becomes possible.
And of course those will not all be due to COVID. When health care systems are overwhelmed, those heart attacks, car accidents, and cancer patients are going to suffer too. Rest assured this pandemic has potential to suck really bad even for people who don't get it.
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That is some hardcore wishful thinking going on there.
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/... [cebm.net]
Re:Great Analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a vast gap between "stop at any cost" (literally impossible) and sending people to their deaths for an economy that primarily benefits people most of us don't give two shits about.
The line should be drawn on what hospitals can handle, assuming our best efforts to increase beds and ventillators, and a staged return to work by geographic area and expected new cases. Obviously travel is fucked for this year, that's just not going to happen and those companies are going to have a rough time. No one will do it voluntarily and I would push back at work to the maximum possible extent.
It would be a good thing if after the dust settles we had a better, tiered response to such crises next time. One which politicians can utilize without necessarily fearing for their jobs and the ruination of the economy, but which might effectively halt the spread earlier. Most companies have disaster plans, but I'm not sure virus is part of them, that should probably change.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a vast gap between "stop at any cost" (literally impossible) and sending people to their deaths for an economy that primarily benefits people most of us don't give two shits about.
You mean like the 3 million - mainly lower-end workers - now out of work because of the economic shutdown? I give a shit about them (and am doing all I can to keep paying my own staff out of my own pocket/savings so they don't have to be laid off), but I can see how a self-entitled techie asshole like you in his insulated world in the Bay area would look down upon them as the unwashed masses...
Re:Great Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
The history of the 1918 influenza in the United States was that the regions that took the strongest actions with forbidding social gathering, closing schools, quarantine, etc recovered economically much faster than the regions that ignored advice to do so and continued with public contact.
Re:Great Analysis (Score:4, Insightful)
What the actual fuck is this supposed to show? You don't understand epidemiology, do you? Just wait. I hope I'm wrong, but for the sparsely populated areas, this is just getting started. You need to have already been preparing for the worst, not ignoring this and hoping for the best. Your relative isolation from the rest of the country will delay things, but exponential growth will still happen.
Re: Great Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it really isn't. In the 1918 flu, the places that shut down the hardest were the quickest to recover both from a health standpoint and an economic one.
Folks who get covid-19 aren't economically productive for weeks at least. The ones that don't die have a strong chance of permanent lung damage.
We should have been more aggressive with testing and tracking like South Korea, who will measure their deaths in the *hundreds*, not thousands let alone hundreds of thousands. We should have locked down ports of entry earlier to limit the spread. We should have forced folks into isolation when they posed a risk. But as a nation we were too worried about what it would do to the economy, so we stayed open for business, got more people sick faster, and now our economy is truly suffering.
Sometimes the hard thing (shutting down) in the short term can make the long term recovery faster and easier. And it shouldn't have to cost you your life. That's a false dilemma.
Re: Weird place to set goalposts (Score:2)
Mmmmm. Tangy Chocolate Balls...
Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as China (Score:5, Interesting)
No, Mr. Trump, having 128 times as many deaths per capita as China is not a "very good job". It is approximately as grossly incompetent as is humanly possible.
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Re:Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as Chi (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup. Actual analysis of crematorium activity, plus analysis of posts on social media, are causing experts to believe there were somewhere around 25,000 to 30,000 deaths in Wuhan in reality.
The mere idea that China - which suppressed all evidence of the disease for two months, then denied human-to-human transmission for weeks after that - somehow managed a death rate less than 1% of the US is fucking absurd. They have never told the truth about the disease during this entire event, why the hell would anyone with a brain start believing them now?
Re: Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as C (Score:2, Informative)
There are zero reliable data points out of China. Having friends there, their perception is that north of 500,000 are dead at least. Take that as flippantly as you want.
Re: Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as C (Score:5, Insightful)
So, anecdotes about estimates by anonymous people, not data?
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Anecdotes about estimates by anonymous people.
Cherry-picked data further massaged to save CCP face.
Which one do you trust more? My suggestion is neither.
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absent of reliable data, all we have are anecdotes. there is literally no reliable data.
Re: Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as C (Score:5, Insightful)
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Anyone who considers what China has officially released as reliable data is delusional. Saving face is a cultural trait and you combine it with a totalitarian government, I would suspect that an order of magnitude is barely enough for their under-reporting. Of course trusting Trump is just as bad.
Then why do the rates of infection and death in China match up with every other country? As someone else mentioned in an article, how would China be able to fake data so accurate to the rates seen in the rest of the world, before we started seeing them in the rest of the world?
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Re: Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as C (Score:5, Interesting)
Newsweek at least [newsweek.com] assumes many, many more. Knowing how the CCP works (I lived there for 6 years, and still have a stepdaughter living there), the Government decrees what the end result will be - and that's it. It happens. Whether it's real or not, that's the story and that's what you hear. Deaths, economic growth, investments, etc. Most of what you read about China is heavily massaged.
My stepdaughter works in logistics for a medical supply company in Shanghai. They've spent the last 2 weeks setting up and shipping tens of thousands of portable hospital beds to Beijing, and Beijing has gone into a lock-down itself. Why would that be, unless they're still having massive numbers of sick people show up?
Also, isn't it curious how China is the only country to have people become "re-infected"? No other country has reported that. Perhaps rather than being cured, they were "deemed cured" to keep the official numbers nice, and sent home early before they were actually cured. Like that's never happened before. Same with movie theaters - open them all up then 3 days later close them all down again. Why?
The CCP attitude is that a person doesn't matter; The People matter. If a few tens of thousands or a couple million die it's OK as long as it does not bring shame to the State, it's all good.
Re: Wow. Only 128x as many deaths per capita as C (Score:5, Informative)
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Having friends there, their perception is that north of 500,000 are dead at least.
As Trump likes to ask (or rather, imply the lack thereof): Sources?
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Your estimate goes up 1 order of magnitude, roughly. So, ignoring the US also underreporting, the us rate is still 10-20x as bad as china, right?
This is why anecdota aren't useful.
China Likely Did Not Report Real Numbers. (Score:3)
China has a population of 1.4 billion. So if everyone in China got infected, that would mean 14 million people would be dead.
The US has a population of 300 million. If everyone in the US got infected, that would mean 3 million people would be dead.
So 100,000 US deaths would be a very good job.
China is hiding their real numbers. Especially being the origin and epicenter of the virus, the real number has to
Re: China Likely Did Not Report Real Numbers. (Score:2)
Last time I check itâ(TM)s pretty hard to test a billion people, as it will be for the 350m USA, let alone the ~6 of our own, which is why I never believe these figures at all.
Itâ(TM)s like trying to assess the severity of an incident by grepping for its count in a 1MB truncated log file.
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Especially being the origin and epicenter of the virus, the real number has to be much, much higher.
I mean, yeah if all else were equal, earlier infection is worse. But their response was 100x stronger than in the west, so no.
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If everyone in the US got infected...
The imperial college estimated that if we did nothing at all to mitigate this, 81% of people would be infected. Your reference point is worse than the worst-case scenario.
You're right about China's numbers being unreliable though, so let's look at some other places. The worst-hit countries which aren't postage stamps are Italy and Spain, with 192 and 157 deaths per 1M people, respectively. Those numbers are from right now and will increase over time, but how much? Trump's claim would put American deaths
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It could be much worse... (Score:2)
It is approximately as grossly incompetent as is humanly possible.
It's certainly incompetent but I think you are massively underestimating the possibilities of how incompetent humans can be. Literally doing nothing is estimated to result in 2.2 million US deaths so there is plenty of scope for him to be even more incompetent and given how rapidly his prediction about how bad the crisis would be have enormously escalated over the past couple of weeks it would not surprise me at all if he adds another zero to his target number of deaths at some point in the future.
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Don't fall for Chinese propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
Trump actually is right in this case. 100k is, unfortunately, a very good number. Find a mathematical model here. [youtu.be]
You're not fighting Trump at this point, but rather basic math. Many are saying we need a moonshot/Manhatten project effort on this virus. [vox.com] And I think we're there.
Itâ(TM)s one person coming in from China (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Itâ(TM)s one person coming in from China (Score:2)
And the inauguration was a beautiful sunny day with hundreds of thousands there!
100,000 Dead = Very Good Job (Score:2)
It's a hoax (Score:4, Insightful)
A very good job would have been not calling it a hoax, and to take it seriously from the start.
Trump is directly responsible for the death of thousands now and hopefully will hopefully end up in chains once he is not president, anymore.
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MASA
Make America Smart Again
Make America Safe Again
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MASA Make America Smart Again Make America Safe Again
I thought it was 'Make America Stupid Again', which he has achieved as president.
(Go ahead and mod me down as 'troll' or 'flamebait' - you know I'm right)
Re: (Score:2)
Mara-A-lago Aeronautics and Space Administration
Re: It's a hoax (Score:5, Informative)
Jan. 6 the govt tied to send researchers to Wuhan, China rejected them.
It has widely been mis-reported that the President called the virus a "hoax" - it has more accurately been reported what the President called the democrats discussions of the virus a "hoax".
It's amazing how many people upset about the president's lies are perfectly comfortable spreading their own lies about what he said/did.
Same thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Splitting hairs. The dems were generally correct and in the right direction on the issue by saying it was just a partisan hoax to attack him he greatly undermined the whole thing WORSE than if he just said it was another hoax by the crooked scientists (like global warming; to say it's a chinese hoax is to attack all those scientists as either corrupt, gullible, incompetent or non-existent.)
Why is it WORSE to call it a dem hoax issue? Because saying it's a hoax allows some opening to think and discover otherwise. Pigeon holing it into the usual binary partisan squabbling and fake outrage etc that everybody is so tired of-- that is WORSE because people completely tune out.
It also plays into the MSM sports metaphor of not doing journalism but instead acting as announcers and celebrity gossip for the TWO teams fighting it out. No truth-- it's side A says this and side B says that; don't take a side and talk about facts; if you do take a side you're expected to be wearing the jersey and cheering your side on. If somebody actually focuses on the ISSUE or facts, the metaphor forces people to disbelieve your sincerity in order to place you on a team. Hence, the "RINO" term's massive growth in use; along with terms like traitors being used because there is also a war metaphor being used by the fanatics.
One can get specific about what constitutes a lie or not. The Washington Post's threshold would call this a lie. I wouldn't say everybody is lying; it doesn't help with the embarrassingly poor english the president uses because it's hard to know what exactly he is referring to by the democrat hoax... was he watching Fox or CNN (he surely wasn't reading party leaders' statements.) All the presidents statements and actions at the time aligned with this "lie" of him calling it a hoax; unless you try again to get into specifics. This incompetent vagueness actually is extremely beneficial because it allows people to interpret it in multiple directions... A "perfect" analysis couldn't be recognized because you must be on team A or team B...
He's right. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're counting from *right now*, 100,000 dead in the US would represent near flawless planning and execution from this point forward.
Once more we should look to South Korea for what a good job *from the start* might look like. The epidemic started there within 1 day of it starting here, and active cases peaked on March 3. When everything is done they'll probably have deaths in the *hundreds*, with a population 1/6 that of the US.
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While I agree with you and share your sentiment on what *should have* been done, at this point that's water under the bridge. We don't have a time machine, so the best we can hope for is that he continues to follow the guidance of people like Dr. Fauci from here on out and not get swayed by sophomoric imbeciles like Fox's Laura Ingraham.
Re:He's right. (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree we don't have a time machine, but that's not why you study history. It's to avoid making the same mistakes.
The biggest mistakes we have been making to date have been waiting to react to developments experts have already anticipated, and taking advice and spreading information from non-experts that contradicts scientific opinion. As far as I see we're still making those mistakes.
Re:He's right. (Score:4, Insightful)
His MAGA supporters are going to buy into whatever he claims no matter what you and I say. Right now what's important is that we take the steps we can at this point to make sure the minimum number of people die. Worry about the election - and reminding the non-MAGA folks of Trump's many failings - closer to November. Endlessly rehashing them now may make you or I feel better, but it's not gonna keep anyone alive - it may instead get in the way of that, given the way Trump's mind operates.
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Looks like 200,000 is (Score:2)
That would explain why he backed down from re-opening the country.
Attend church (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are a Trump supporter, please attend Easter services with 300+ other people and MAGA.
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Not if the churches are immediately quarantined. Then getting the rapturists together in one place would put the consequences firmly where they belong. They might even be better off for it because it will be easier to provide medical assistance when we know where they are, rather than being scattered around the vicinity.
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Everyone will get it eventually. All we're doing is slowing the spread, not stopping it. Your best bet it to get it early before the healthcare system is overwhelmed, or very late, once the peek has died down. All we're trying to do right now is make the peak less high and spread out over time slightly so that the healthcare system can cope better. Make no mistake, you will eventually get it though (unless you live in a plastic bubble).
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They are now known as "self rapturing services".
How would it not be a good job? (Score:2)
That would be higher than normal seasonal flu deaths [cdc.gov] (34k in 2019), but far on the low end of the death rate estimates [cdc.gov] from Covid19 so far (0.25%â"3.0%, or 89k - 1 million).
Some estimates in the past were way higher [nytimes.com] than even that 1 million figure, so it seems like already the U.S. is doing a pretty good job given how the estimates are revising downward [dailywire.com] due to measures put in place here and abroad.
Honestly, what more could you realistically do than what has already been done? I see a lot of fantasy go
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even though no other country did anything on a much different timeline.
false.
Taiwan shut its borders to Hong Kong and China within days. they have had one death (one elderly patient already in hospital and already very ill), and 49 reported infections. six of those were three weeks ago: six tourists.... coming from Italy.
Taiwan - where i've been living for three years - has, as an Asian country, a significant social tolerance to face-masks. they also have had to deal with Swine flu and other diseases, and took them seriously. when i came through customs last year we had to
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Most those numbers forget that in a crunch a TON of people die from other things that could have been handled. You might get 1 million deaths but there could be another million not counted because they were NOT directly caused by it.
Ratings higher than "The Bachelor" (Score:5, Insightful)
Someday we will have a President that puts the country before their ratings, maybe, hopefully.
Where has the week gone? (Score:3)
Trump also undermined his plea for unity by uttering falsehoods, verbally abusing reporters and making incendiary allegations...
So, it's Monday already? Wow, this week has just flown by...
100k is a measure of incompetence (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta Love the Petty Politics (Score:3)
So it's not just going away? (Score:5, Insightful)
"And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done."
Seriously, it is extremely hard to believe anything this man says.
Re:So it's not just going away? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, it is extremely hard to believe anything this man says.
Nobody votes for him because they believe what he says. They just really like the attitude of what he's saying. That and what he says makes liberals cry.
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Seriously, it is extremely hard to believe anything this man says.
They just really like the attitude of what he's saying. That and what he says makes liberals cry.
And we've all seen how a vote based on "Fuck you, liberals" has turned out so far.....
Don't feed the troll (Score:2)
What he says is NOT NEWS. He talks round and round, contradicts himself, changes his mind, ignores reporter questions, etc.
Until he actually signs something or a staff member confirms an order was given to them personally, his statements are worse than useless as news, because they just distract from actual news.
How is this a frontpage story? (Score:2)
A babbling idiot makes the pronouncement that if the total US coronavirus deaths fall under 100K, then the US gov't has done a good job. Great, I'd call it a miraculous job. And its not going to end up that low. Epidemiologists (the people actually qualified to make a guess) put the death toll at roughly 1-2% of all infected, and that we should see at least 1 million deaths from coronavirus. If I wanted to read the pronouncements of a babbling idiot, I'd pick up and read a newspaper or watch mainstream
Just to provide some perspective (Score:2)
The CDC estimates as many as 61,000 people die of the flu (in the US) every year. Which is not even newsworthy.
Last I heard it's likely to hit 200k (Score:3, Insightful)
What terrifies me is that you had multiple people from the Republican party [slate.com] and a few CEOs [businessinsider.com] saying that it's OK if people die to save the Economy & the Dow Jones average.
The Scary thing wasn't that they said it. The Scary thing is they said it and the poll numbers of the people saying it went _up_.
They old people, "You're going to die" and those people went and replied with "Ok, sure boss".
It's practically a death cult.
and what will weekly deep cleans of the office cos (Score:2)
and what will weekly deep cleans of the office cost?
Re:Last I heard it's likely to hit 200k (Score:4, Informative)
Loss of lifespan due to COVID is bad, but it's heavily weighted on the elderly which means life-months lost are comparatively fewer with any cause of mortality that is more uniformly distributed across age, like poverty. Keep this concept in mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Donald Trump is the Antichrist (Score:2)
I understand why he acuses health workers (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Trump is a man of very little imagination, and even less empathy. But I imagine he tried, and when he thought about what he would do if he was in a situation where his safety depended on a commodity in short supply, he would steal and hoard them. Therefore people in that situation must be doing the same thing.
I think the reality of the situation may be reaching him.
His numbers still don't make sense to me, when we have WHO predicting overall infection rates north of 50%, and we round down everything it looks like this to me.
In the US, 50% of 300M is 150M infections
If there is a 1% mortality rate of that 150M that means 1.5 Million people die.
I think maybe those numbers are still beyond Trump's ability to imagine, crap, they are beyond my ability to imagine, but if the actual pandemic looks anything like that then everyone will know someone who dies.
But anyway, I guess we can give him credit for trying to empathize and assume everyone is as mean spirited and self involved as he is.
I hate the press conferences because (Score:3)
I get tired of reporters asking asinine questions for the sake of trying to trip up the president. You don't see stupid questions being asked of any of the scientific advisors.
If I were Trump, I'd take one intelligent question from each reporter, and if it went stupid, I'd go to the next person, or ask the network to let a more intelligent reporter in before taking any more questions from that network.
By asking stupid questions like that, you allow Trump to make false accusations that are going to be forgotten by the time the truth comes out. Nobody knows where this is going, and it does no good to be trying to trap someone in a lie who doesn't care what they say, but in trying, you look stupid in the process.
The MSM is shooting itself in the foot for asking silly questions.
Re: The media is the worst (Score:2)
It really improved the optimism of their reporting.
Re: (Score:3)
Still no apology.
From: CBS News blames 'editing mistake' after footage from Italian hospital appears in report on New York coronavirus crisis" [washingtonexaminer.com] (March 30, 2020 02:56 PM) :
CBS News acknowledged it aired the wrong footage while reporting last week on New York hospitals and the ventilator shortage during the coronavirus outbreak.
"It was an editing mistake," a CBS spokesperson told the Washington Examiner when asked about the footage. "We took immediate steps to remove it from all platforms and shows."
Re: (Score:3)
Make a "mistake" (lie) ...
Are you implying that a mistake and lie are the same thing? Everyone, including the Media and Trump, makes mistakes. The difference is that the Media almost always makes a correction and often an apology for making the error, sometimes with an explanation. Trump never does any of that. A lie is a willful misrepresentation and I don't know of any real news organization, including the actual News division of Fox, that does this. They report things, good and/or bad. Opinion journalists and articles are dif
Re:immune health (Score:5, Informative)
Such nonsense. 22 different African countries have confirmed COVID19 deaths [wikipedia.org] and that doesn't count the countries with undeveloped health care systems where deaths were not identified.
Re:immune health (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely it's because their population is too poor to travel.
The worldwide spread of COVID-19 is directly related to the lifestyle of the middle and upper classes - not the poor.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
There's that this article does other than allow people to rant.
Now, if there was an article discussing assumptions and the math that goes into the predictions, I would like to see that and I think it would better fit Slashdot's goal of being a source for "News for Nerds".
Re: (Score:2)
The closest I've ever seen in the Bible (Ex. 21:22-23) for penalties for abortion would be if two men are fighting and cause a woman to lose her unborn child, then the people fighting would have a civil fine assessed if the father desired as long as the woman didn't also die. If the woman died, then the normal penalties would apply. This is not the same penalty attributed to other accidental death situations. So I'd say that according to the law, the loss of an unborn baby, by itself would only be important
Re: (Score:3)
Italy and Spain have fewer confirmed cases, but twice as many recovered cases. This clearly shows that they had the epidemic for a longer time since it takes at least a week to recover.